…don’t accost me on my way in and out begging for money. (Sometimes you do get hit up in both directions, too.) And really, that’s what is going on, begging for money. Same goes for at the register, btw. Doesn’t matter if a product is being sold or a good cause is being promoted. It’s still confronting people to pressure them into buying a product they didn’t come out for. Sort of an emotional public intimidation. But what it really is is begging.
I’m just going to the store, leave me alone.
I’m not talking traditional panhandling. You know, the people at the side of the road with cardboard signs. That’s bad enough. But that’s easy to take care of… just swing your car as if you’re going to run them over and watch them scurry for safety. LOL!!! Oh, fun times. 😛 But I digress.
Warning, mini-rant: I especially hate it when panhandlers use their kids. That makes me angry. /mini-rant off
Anyway, Little League, school clubs, Scouts, various charities and so on, all selling their various goodies and wares by placing themselves at an unavoidable place of a store entrance. It doesn’t really matter what the cause it, I didn’t leave home to seek you out, you placed yourself in my path seeking money. That’s a form of begging.
The worst, IMO, is the fire fighter “boot drives”, where fire fighters (and sometimes police) station themselves at busy intersections and walk up and down the stopped vehicles holding their boots out for people to toss money in. Let’s be real, that’s intimidating to the average person, and they know it. It’s a form of bullying, an emotional strong-arm tactic, regardless the intent or who is doing it. Bottom line: it’s no less panhandling than what traditional panhandlers do. No way around it.
I don’t appreciate being put in the position of being the “bad guy” who didn’t donate to the cause, or didn’t buy the requisite amount of cookies, or whatever, in full view of everyone and being labeled “that guy” when I may have a perfectly good reason to not participate. Maybe I give elsewhere. Maybe I have other causes near and dear to my heart, and limited resources, so I have to pick and choose accordingly. Public coercion doesn’t allow for that, though. You still get unfairly labeled.
Then again, maybe I should embrace being “that guy”. I am a curmudgeon, after all.